


@delicatewhumps' Bad Things Happen Bingo - It

by IndigoFudge



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dead Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot Collection, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Touch-Starved, Whump, minor mention of it at least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoFudge/pseuds/IndigoFudge
Summary: I got a BTHB card and decided to post my responses to the prompts on here as well as Tumblr! Apologies in advance for the angst that is to come.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & The Losers Club, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, The Losers Club & Richie Tozier
Kudos: 3





	1. "I Will Only Slow You Down"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers want to take Eddie out of Neibolt. Eddie refuses.

Richie had stayed because he needed to. He stayed because only an asshole would leave Eddie alone in this state. He stayed because he had to make sure Eddie remained awake.

The staying had been... well. It wasn’t “easy,” obviously. It’s never _easy_ to watch your friend lie against the wall in pain as they cough up blood. But it had been easy to hold Eddie’s hand and sit close by him, so close that their shoulders were touching, because being near Eddie has always been easy.

“You’re gonna be okay, you know,” Richie had said several minutes into the staying. 

Eddie had just shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

They’d said other things too. Richie had gone off on a tangent about his standup and about how he was terrified to write his own material. Eddie had ranted about the dirt in the cavern and about how unsanitary it was, how his wounds were probably getting infected as they spoke.

As Eddie talked, Richie had been gazing at him with a quiet kind of terror, the sort that made his throat close up.

And then the others returned, and now everyone has a bigger problem than Eddie sitting in dirt - namely, how they are going to carry him _out_ _of_ the dirt.

“Okay, Ben, can- if you- if you get his legs, I’ll get his arms,” says Richie, slipping his hands underneath Eddie’s arms and holding on tight.

Ben grabs Eddie’s ankles. “That works. Lift him on the count of three,” he directs. “One- two-”

But on three, they discover picking up a grown man to carry him out of the sewers is actually a lot harder than it seems. Richie grunts, almost dropping Eddie but catching him just in time. “ _Fuck.”_ He slowly sets Eddie down. “New plan?”

“I don’t know if I can carry him out of here myself,” says Ben. “I’ll be able to lift him up, but I need two hands to climb.”

The cavern shakes, making everyone stumble.

“And there’s that.” Bev laughs without humor. “Ben- what if you- if you picked him up like _this,_ and...” She bites her lip, trailing off. 

Richie pipes up. “I mean, I’d totally bridal carry him out of here, but it’s like Ben said - there’s a shit ton of climbing, and I need two hands for that.” His hand finds Eddie’s and squeezes it again; Eddie squeezes back.

The floor heaves up and then down. Bill curses, grabbing onto Mike. Richie and Eddie lock eyes.

All at once, Richie realizes what that look means. “ _No,”_ he says, his voice breaking. “Eddie. _Eddie,_ it’s gonna be okay, man, we’re taking you out of here.”

Eddie shakes his head and turns to the other Losers. “Guys.” 

Everyone looks at him, sadly, desperately. “What is it, Eds?” says Mike.

“Look,” Eddie says. “Just go. _Hurry.”_

Bill swallows, putting a hand on Eddie’s knee. “H-how are we gonna-”

Staring at him meaningfully, Eddie repeats: “Just _go.”_

“Eds,” says Bev. “Eddie, we’re not leaving you.”

“Yeah, don’t be fucking stupid.” Richie sniffles, trying to keep his tone light despite how much it’s straining. “You’ve already done enough self-sacrificial bullshit tonight. It’s _our_ turn to help _you_.”

Eddie’s expression grows even more serious. “No. The cistern is collapsing, and it’s collapsing fast. I’ll only slow you down. We don’t all have to die tonight.”

“ _Neither do you_ ,” says Richie, every word deliberate.

Eddie looks fond. “Rich, you can be so fucking dense sometimes.” He brings a hand up and cups Richie’s cheek. 

“Eddie.” Richie’s stuck frozen. One hand moves to his face and closes around Eddie’s, holding it there. “Eddie, _stop,_ we can still take you out of here, we can still bring you out.”

“Then what?” says Eddie. “You get me to a hospital and I take up space in an emergency room, septic and comatose until they take me off life support? I need you guys to go, _now,_ and leave me here. _Please.”_

Bev buries her head in her hands, shoulders shaking with sobs. Ben hugs her. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie whispers, eyelids drooping. “I’m sure. I love you guys.”

“I love _you_ ,” Richie grits out, crying. “Eds. I love you. I’m so sorry, I don’t know if- I know now’s not the time, I know you don’t feel the same, I’m not getting my hopes up, I just- I’ve loved you for so long.”

Eddie smiles. “I know.”

The response catches Richie off guard, and he laughs through his tears. “Did you just pull a fucking _Han Solo_?” 

“Mhm,” hums Eddie, coughing raggedly. Blood drips down his chin. “Now go, dumbass. The place is coming down. I don’t want you all to get buried here with me.” He leans forward slightly and kisses Richie on the cheek.

Richie’s jaw drops. “ _Eds,”_ he starts. He wipes at his eyes. “Eddie. You better plan on coming back as a ghost to haunt me, alright?”

“Of course.” Eddie closes his eyes. “Now can everyone stop taking their sweet fucking time and leave already before this cave crashes down completely?”

They hug him, one by one. Richie is the last and the longest. “I love you,” he whispers again.

This time, Eddie says “I love you too. Forever,” and kisses him on the lips.

“Wow,” says Richie. “I have to leave after _that?”_ But he’s grinning with all the love in his heart despite everything. “Bye, Eds.”

Bev says goodbye, and Ben and Mike, and Bill. Eddie gives one last smile.

And they leave.

In the years that follow, Richie comes out publicly, Bev and Bill get divorces, and Mike finally leaves Derry. Ben and Bev are happy together; Mike and Bill are happy together.

Richie is happy, but he’s not _together._

He still thinks about Eddie every day. The two of them had taken a picture at dinner that night, and Richie keeps that as his phone background. He starts writing his own material and dressing the way he wants to and standing proud instead of hunched over. 

For Eddie, but also for himself. 

Every once in a while, he’ll see a smudged figure out of the corner of his eye, or he’ll hear footsteps when he’s alone, or he’ll wake up with the fading sensation of a hand on his forehead. And he finds himself smiling. 

“Love you, Eddie,” he’ll say to his empty (?) apartment. 

Each time, without fail, he’ll hear a faint whispered “Love you too."


	2. "Touch Starved"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie realizes how touch starved he has been for his entire life. Fluff ensues.

Holding Eddie is the easiest thing in the world for Richie, and vice versa.

When they were kids, they’d both sit in the hammock, Richie resting a hand on Eddie’s leg. They’d lie on the floor of Richie’s room, leaning their heads together. They even used to hold hands when they were really little, like 8 or so - skipping down the sidewalk way ahead of Maggie and Went, fingers intertwined between them. As they got older they stopped. Being close to one another began to feel like something that should be hidden.

As adults, when they came back to Derry, things had changed completely, yet were also exactly the same. A magnet pulled them together; this time they tried to fight it. They arm-wrestled at dinner, both slightly drunk and giddy with laughter. But they were grown up now, and they couldn’t be attached at the hip for the next couple days - no matter how much they belonged that way.

Exceptions started to be made when they got down in the sewers. Richie touched Eddie’s cheek, patted it, told him he was brave. When they confronted the scary doors, Richie gently grabbed Eddie’s wrist. And of course, as Eddie sat bleeding out, their hands were pushed up against each other to put pressure on the wound. 

But then Eddie recovered, and things were different once again. Somehow, their closeness was deeper, more meaningful. Eddie held Richie’s hand without fear as he lay in the hospital bed. He leaned on Richie for support as he took his first shaky steps with a cane. Now they’ve even moved in together (platonically, of _course)_ , and it isn’t a secret, it’s celebrated.

There is still a dam there, though. 

“Rich,” Eddie says one day. “Turn up the heat, it’s cold as fuck in here.”

“It’s winter, Eddie my love.” Richie sits down on the couch, a foot away from Eddie. “The heat’s already up. Sorry.”

Eddie stares deeply at him, parting his lips as if he’s about to say something, but ultimately deciding against it. 

Richie moves closer. He grabs his SpongeBob throw blanket from the other end of the couch and wraps it around Eddie’s shoulders. His hands linger there. “Better?”

“I...” Eddie casts his gaze downwards. “Yeah. Thanks.” 

They sit in awkward silence before Richie scoots even closer, throwing an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and pulling him near. “Let’s huddle like penguins to conserve warmth.”

Eddie can’t stop himself from smiling. Richie’s touch is absolutely electric. _Jesus,_ thinks Eddie. _Am I seriously_ that _touch starved?_ Myra never held him like this. The closest contact they usually had was when their hands would brush every morning as she would hand him his coffee mug from the cupboard, and he never had a desire to go further. But with Richie... God. With Richie, Eddie’s skin lights up at every touch. He rests his head against Richie’s shoulder and sighs.

Richie tenses up. For a terrifying second, Eddie’s scared that he’s made a mistake, that Richie is going to yell at him for being weird, but then Richie just - almost _shyly_ \- moves his free hand for Eddie to grab.

Eddie’s heart knocks against his ribcage as he takes it. He thinks back to when he got impaled, blood spilling from his chest. He’d almost died. And what would he have been remembered as? A cold, impersonal employee? A cold, impersonal husband? A risk analyst whose mouth was permanently hardened into a frown and who exclusively drank black coffee?

Someone whose mother never hugged him, whose wife never sat close to him, whose coworkers never even clapped him on the back? Someone so distant from everyone in his life that the most intimately he’d been touched was by his _doctor_?

What a fucking sad, pathetic excuse for a life. 

Eddie starts to cry, and he doesn’t even realize until Richie asks what’s wrong. 

“ _Shit_ , sorry. Nothing. I’m fine. I just... I’m thinking. Remembering. No one ever...” ... _showed me this much affection_ , but he can’t say that out loud.

“Ever what?”

Eddie looks up at Richie again. “Remember as kids? We’d share the hammock, we’d hold hands, we’d be _close_ all the time. Then I grew up and... and with Myra, and everything... it just felt like no one ever wanted to be near me.” Why is it so hard to get the words out?

Richie furrows his brows while Eddie begins to cry with deep sobs that wrack his chest. “Eds... Eddie. Hey, it’s okay, don’t be sad. Come here.” He pulls Eddie into a close hug. “... _I_ want to be near you. That hasn’t changed.”

Warmth envelops Eddie as Richie’s arms wrap around him. It’s everything he’s been missing for the past twenty years. He buries his face in Richie’s chest; tears stream down his cheeks. 

And Richie holds him, rubbing his back. “Shh, hey,” Richie soothes. “I’ve got you. I don’t know what bullshit you went through in your old life, but you’re safe now, okay?”

“Okay,” says Eddie, wiping his eyes. _Richie is right,_ he thinks. _That was my old life. I have a new life now. I’m safe now. I can be brave._ “...Richie?”

“What’s up, Eds?”

Eddie pulls away a bit and locks eyes with Richie. “I think... I think I love you,” he says truthfully, and as the words leave his mouth everything clicks into place. “Holy _shit,_ yeah, I think... it’s taken me thirty-odd years to figure it out, but... I love you.” 

If there ever were a time to use the phrase ‘heart-eyes’ to describe someone’s expression, now would be it. Richie genuinely looks as if Eddie has just handed him all of the stars in the universe. “Eddie,” he breathes, lightly gripping Eddie’s forearms. “Eds, my love. I love you too, so _fucking_ much. Is it okay if I kiss you?”

Eddie nods, and their lips touch, and it feels the most right and perfect that anything has ever felt in his entire life. “Fuck,” he sighs against Richie’s mouth. 

He doesn’t want to be known as cold and impersonal and distant anymore. He wants to _love,_ and be loved, and show affection towards people that care about him.

 _Especially_ towards Richie.

They’ve both been waiting too long for this.

Eddie climbs into Richie’s lap, hugging him again, hooking his chin over Richie’s shoulder. He wants to shout it from the rooftops: _I love him! And he loves me!_ But right now, they’ve got twenty years of a lack of cuddling to make up for.

**Author's Note:**

> My writing blog is @delicatewhumps on Tumblr!


End file.
